


The Astronomer's Daughter

by Jennifer Gail (lferion)



Category: 20th Century CE RPF, Space Age RPF
Genre: Astronomy, Early Work, Filk, Gen, Juvenilia, Outer Space, Poetry, Real Life, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1985-04-23
Updated: 1985-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-10 18:26:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/102741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/pseuds/Jennifer%20Gail
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The astronomer's daughter has only one wish</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Astronomer's Daughter

My father sails the galaxies on glass and steel and light  
My mother paints us pictures of bright things beyond our sight  
My books tell me of marvels - of elves and ships and stars  
I sit entranced as Voyager launches off toward Mars

   Telescope, spectrascope, antenna-dish  
   Red-shift and blue-shift and galactic drift  
   Luminous measures, mechanics of lift  
   The Astronomer's Daughter has only one wish

Heinlein told of torch-ships, of tunnels in the sky  
Goddard built us rockets to show that we could fly  
Apollo 7 launches men, 11 lands them safe  
Why must I be stuck on Earth, in gravity's pull and chafe?

   Pulsar and quasar and hydrogen glow  
   Infinity squared and physics says "Go!"  
   Mathematic equations, mirrors just so  
   The Astronomer's Daughter thinks we're going too slow

*I'm younger than the Space Age - spaceflight? But of course!  
*My father taught me magnitude, star names, black hole's force  
*Velocity and red-shift, zero kelvin, fahrenheit  
*He would have been an astronaut, but something stayed his flight

   *Sputnik and Skylab and Mariner 3  
   *Grissom and Armstrong and fractions of C  
   *Jupiter, Saturn and Pioneer's free  
   *The Astronomer's Daughter cries "Will they let me?"

They've cancelled the Apollo flights, petitions all in vain  
Will they let the shuttle fly or ground us once again?  
Now I'm old enough to know the tragedy of this  
We've climbed too high to cut so short our trek through the abyss

   Stellar equations and venturi thrust  
   Silicon wafers and microdot rust  
   Fragile heat-tiles that crumble to dust  
   Astronomer's Daughter, hold fast to your trust

My father studies redshifts of the distant galaxies  
Stuck on Earth we can but look out at the starry seas  
But the promise of my childhood was of Space within our reach  
The rocked flamed and thundered as we watched upon the beach

   Venus and Neptune and Pluto and Mars  
   Asteroid, planetoid, meteor scars  
   LaGrange point stations and shuttlecraft cars  
   The Astronomer's Daughter asks "What of the Stars?"

*The Shuttle's named Columbia, she's NASA's joy and pride  
*We finally convinced them and they sent up Sally Ride  
*But still we've only got three ships, they range not very far  
*What happened to the dreams we had of reaching to the stars?

   *Rukbat and Algol, Rigel and Altair  
   *Castor and Pollux, the twins are a pair  
   *Betelgeuse bloodly and Procyon fair  
   *The Astronomer's Daughter cries "Do we not care?"

The planets still await us, the moon within our sight  
The authors and the telescopes push back the rim of night  
Our ships would span the distance out to Pluto and beyond  
The Universe awaits us, and I would we'd carry on

   Parsecs and lightyears and Pisces the fish  
   Helium, hydrogen, oxygen-gift  
   Telemetry, physics, molecular shift  
   The Astronomer's Daughter yet holds to her wish

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a filk/song, this has yet to acquire a tune. The *verses are the ones I occasionally leave out for time when performing.
> 
> All the star-names in the second-to-last verse are real, including Rukbat (Alpha Sagittarii), which is indeed in the constellation Sagittarius.


End file.
